7.3 Themes in support of an emerging contextual ecofeminist spirituality
7.3.5 Hope
108
109 emphasize the next generation and show that there is still life after struggle.123 The courageous suffering of others inspires hope as Stock Controller/Embroiderer says, “Susan is a role model for us in the way that she was able to honestly face up to her circumstances.”124
The Assistant Manager stresses that the community’s hope comes through creativity and that the Keiskamma Altarpiece was about hope.125 The Manager of the Embroiderers described the Keiskamma Altarpiece as offering hope and comments on the images of the mothers going to church saying, “This was hopeful as women looked at them and thought, even if I don’t go to church maybe one day I will.”126 The Manager of the Embroiderers comments on the Keiskama Altarpiece saying, “Everyone is happy to see it and all think it is very beautiful.”127 “The second panel is about hope and the hope is that we will find a cure for AIDS,” adds the Assistant Manager.128
Is hope found in art? When asked how creating the Keiskamma Altarpiece affected one, Embroiderer 1 expresses, “It gave us new hope and a feeling of pride to the whole community.”129 The Design Manager says “The Altarpiece asks questions about hope, such as where is hope found within us? It is also a prayer to God that more hope will come.”130 Embroiderer 2 feels “I can express my feelings through art and that art is a gift of God inside a person.”131 Another way in which art offers hope is through the symbolic representation of the images chosen to be reproduced. Most of the cushion covers in the shop at the time of this interview had images of cows on them and when questioned Embroiderer 2 said that cows symbolize life. “An example of this is when a cow has a baby it gives milk which your baby can share.”132 Ex-Embroiderer/Writer says that the women in the project have learnt about art appreciation
123 Assistant Manager, Grahamstown, 29/06/2008.
124 Stock Controller and embroiderer, Hamburg, 20/08/2008.
125 Assistant Manager, Grahamstown, 29/06/2008.
126 Manager of Embroiderers, Hamburg, 25/03/2008.
127 Manager of Embroiderers, Hamburg, 25/03/2008.
128 Assistant Manager, Grahamstown, 29/06/2008.
129 Embroiderer 1, Hamburg, 25/03/2008.
130 Design Manager, Hamburg, 21/08/2008.
131 Embroiderer 2, Grahamstown, 29/06/2008.
132 Embroiderer 2, Hamburg, 21/07/2011.
110 and that she is seeing women put wall hangings in their homes. “People are now making art for themselves. I now love art where previously I had no time for it.”133
Hope is linked to healing and restores what is broken and irregular to its former beauty. Embroiderer 4 says, “By creating art we were bringing healing to our colleagues through hope as many are HIV positive.
They experience this healing because we are able to show them that there are still things they can do with their lives and in this way art is a tool used to heal.”134 Healing is also linked with rituals such as with the ancestors and the Keiskamma Altarpiece depicts numerous rituals associated with healing and hope.
Stock controller/Embroiderer describes how rituals appeal to the ancestors and are a way of presenting one’s prayers before God.135 The community embraces spiritual power for healing through their numerous beliefs and accepts that all of these sources of faith offer hope which is in keeping with an ecofeminist spirituality.
Hope offers purpose affecting their daily lives transforming their despair and hopelessness into possibility. “We believe that God has given us purpose and we need to make a difference. It is God who helps us to find this purpose” states the Manager of the Embroiderers.136 Embroiderer 5 says that God has given her embroidery to do which has brought her strength and she likes to embroiderer at night while she thinks about God.137
Hope is sustained through relations that cause the whole earth community to flourish. Hope encourages a conversion experience where people undertake to live differently and take practical steps to promote the transformation of their society. One of these steps encourages artists and poets from within the community to tell the story of the cosmos so as to promote awe, wonder and reverence for all of life. In the Keiskamma Altarpiece, the artists designed the second panel with the image of the Indian Ocean with its rich resources surrounding the community which was depicted as a circular image emphasizing the
133 Ex-Embroiderer/Writer, Hamburg, 21/08/2008.
134 Embroiderer 2, Hamburg, 21/07/2011.
135 Stock controller/Embroiderer, Hamburg, 20/08/2008.
136 Manager of the Embroiderers, Hamburg, 28/03/2008.
137 Embroiderer 5, Hamburg, 21/07/2011.
111 community’s inter-relationship with ocean.138 In the third panel is an image of the Keiskamma River that flows in front of the art studios, which symbolizes the celebration of environmental beauty. 139
Hope is experienced through a vision for a sustainable future. Embroiderer 4 states, “The Keiskamma Garden Project has taught me gardening skills. It makes me happy because I do not have to buy lots of things and it helps feed my grandchildren when the Project runs out of money.”140 Embroiderer 2 says that they are trying to get people in their community “To make a project out of fishing by creating a fish shop for the community. This will mean getting the fisherman and women who collect mussels to supply the shop. Another idea I had is to make mother of pearl buttons by collecting perlemoen containers.” She adds that this is also a way of recycling waste which she learnt about through a felt making project where Magda, the Felt Maker, taught them how to make artworks out of off-cuts.141 Embroiderer 5 says the project has taught her to grow vegetables and has brought health care into the area as the children are being checked at school for disease.142
Hope is composed of emerging ideas which are in keeping with an ecofeminist spirituality that seeks to define itself in the present and encourage practical actions to assist in a sustainable future.